“Chinese authorities have been eager to describe many violent incidents as terrorists attacks. Given that, I think there is less chance this was the work of terrorists. But the methodology used could be a cause of worry,” said Andrew Small, terrorism expert and Transatlantic Fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States.
“China has an increasingly problematic reputation because of Xi’s economic management,” Andrew Small, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told FP. “China is more on [its] back foot on some of the economic issues. That might put [it] under more pressure to push ahead on reforms promised by Xi.”
Xi would like a U.S. commitment to include China’s currency among the International Monetary Fund’s reserve currencies, which would be a major sign of confidence in China’s economy, Pei said. The United States wants such a step to include a Chinese commitment to greater transparency of its economy, said Andrew Small, another analyst at the German Marshall Fund.
“Chinese officials see a political settlement in Afghanistan as the only surefire way to prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for Uighur militants and a destabilizing force across the wider region,” said Andrew Small, a China-Pakistan expert at the German Marshall Fund. Fear of such destabilization has suddenly awakened Beijing’s interest in diplomacy. “No country has been a more active and enthusiastic supporter of reconciliation talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government than China,” said Small.
„…In fact, China will be looking to consolidate support for its ambitious Silk Road schemes, the so-called „One Belt, One Road Initiative“ which composes Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative, as Andrew Small, a fellow with the Asia program of German Marshall Fund of the United States, told DW. „Many of the new financing instruments that the summits will showcase are going to be directly involved in these plans, and a number of the infrastructure projects under discussion will fall under the auspices of the scheme. The SCO’s members and observers compose almost all the important countries along the land routes running from China to Europe, making it the ideal setting for many of these discussions.““
„…Mais il représente aussi des points positifs, note le chercheur Andrew Small, auteur de The China-Pakistan Axis : Asia’s New Geopolitics (L’Axe Chine-Pakistan ou la nouvelle géopolitique asiatique), publié début 2015 par Oxford University : « Les retombées économiques du couloir Chine-Pakistan et les pressions chinoises sur le Pakistan devraient amener ce pays à jouer un rôle plus retenu et même constructif. Or, un Pakistan politiquement et économiquement plus “normal” devient aussi un voisin plus gérable pour l’Inde », nous écrit-il dans un courriel. « Les relations entre l’Inde et la Chine, estime le chercheur, ont en commun avec les relations Chine-Etats-Unis que les motifs de coopération et de compétition semblent augmenter en même temps. » Et, poursuit-il, « à la fois Xi Jinping et Narendra Modi semblent être à l’aise avec ce paradoxe ».“
Profile of Andrew and his relationship with China.
„…Andrew Small, author of the recent book, „Pakistan-China axis“, has argued that China has kept very little of its pledges for assistance made to Pakistan in the past.“
„…As Andrew Small very rightly said in his book The China-Pakistan Axis: ‘In Pakistan, political leaders have often been eager to dress up tentative plans between the two sides as firm agreements, and to portray Chinese backing for their position as far stronger than exists in reality.’“
„…De Chinese president Xi Jinping tekent in Pakistan contracten voor infrastructuurprojecten die in totaal bijna 50 miljard dollar waard zijn. Een supersnelweg moet China een strategische toegang tot de Indische Oceaan bieden.“
„…According to Andrew Small, a trans-Atlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund and author of “The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics,” Pakistan’s recent military operation had Chinese concerns in mind. “The operation that the Pakistani army launched in North Waziristan, Zarb-e-Azb, I think, was partly conceived with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement [in mind],” Small said. He was referring to a group that is seeking independence for the Xinjiang region in China, home to a sizable Muslim population.“
„…Según Andrew Small, autor del libro The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia´s New Geopolitics (El Eje China-Pakistán: La Nueva Geopolítica Asiática), China pretende “ayudar a estabilizar su socio más cercano, Pakistán, sobre el que Pekín ha estado cada vez más preocupado en los últimos años”. Asimismo, busca desarrollar conexiones fiables por tierra con el Índico; estimular el crecimiento económico en su interior, en momentos de ralentización, y enviar al extranjero su exceso de capacidad.“
„…Like all large Chinese financing announcements, though, we should be wary of counting the chickens before they hatch. Many previous pledges of support have not been delivered. According to a RAND study (cited by Andrew Small in his book The China Pakistan Axis), of the $66 billion of financial assistance China pledged to Pakistan from 2001 to 2011, a mere 6% actually eventuated. As I’ve noted before, it is crucial to follow the money and not assume that announcements of Chinese largesse will all end up happening.“
„…Andrew Small, author of „The China-Pakistan Axis“, said China’s recent experience of working in Pakistan had given it a good idea of which projects could proceed in spite of security worries. „China is certainly not completely confident that all the projects will be protected, but they think these security problems are one of the main reasons that it’s so important that they move ahead, for the sake of Pakistan’s stability,“ he told AFP. Even if not all the projects envisaged in the corridor plan went ahead, Small said, „the scale is so large that it should still have a major economic impact regardless“. And while the Chinese projects dwarf an American assistance package to Pakistan of $5 billion that began in 2010, Small said Beijing was not interested in supplanting Washington in the region, preferring to see the US maintain its support.“
„…as Andrew Small, author of The China-Pakistan Axis, points out, it’s precisely because of these security concerns that China is so committed to developing the region. “China is certainly not completely confident that all the projects will be protected, but they think these security problems are one of the main reasons that it’s so important that they move ahead, for the sake of Pakistan’s stability,” he told AFP. Unrest in Pakistan has a negative influence on China’s own security, particularly in Xinjiang. Beijing hopes that by boosting economic development, it ban bring stability to its neighbor.“
„…As Andrew Small, an expert on China-Pakistan relations at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, writes, it would be an oversimplification to see China’s expanding role in Pakistan as just a challenge to a U.S.-India consensus that’s emerged in recent years. China, after all, likely values its bilateral relations with the U.S. and India as much — and likely more — than its ties with Pakistan. While China has a more assertive stance in East Asia — its backyard — it’s playing a different game to the west. China’s recent offer to help mediate talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan, Small notes, marks a real departure from decades when Beijing’s official policy has been that of non-interference in the politics of other countries.“
„…“This will put China much more center stage politically in Pakistan than ever before,” said Andrew Small, the author of the book “The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics.” Traditionally, he said, “The economic dimension of the relationship has been thin.” With the exception of a few road projects, the numbers — including bilateral trade figures — have been quite small when compared with the rest of the region. “Now they are adding a serious economic dynamic to a relationship that has always been a security-based relationship,” added Small, who is a transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund think tank in Washington, D.C. … For the Chinese, Small said, counterterrorism is central to the relationship and to bringing stability to their western periphery. “It’s about stability in Pakistan itself, Afghanistan in the wider picture and safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas that have served as training bases and sources of ideological inspiration for militants from China’s Xinjiang province,” he said. … “The Chinese are willing to press ahead despite these risks [in Baluchistan],” Small said. Although the plans could be derailed by security problems, he added, they could help stabilize the country economically and politically. … “The Chinese still see the Pakistanis as playing a counterbalancing role,” Small said, referring to how Pakistan has played a subsidiary role in the India-China rivalry. “But they want Pakistan to be stable and at peace with major powers.”“
„…德国马歇尔基金会的中巴问题专家安德鲁·斯茂（Andrew Small）刚刚出版了《中巴轴线》The China-Pakistan Axis一书。他说，这条经济走廊对中国来说意义重大。 斯茂说：“中巴经济走廊被中国形容为海上丝绸之路的旗舰工程。中国的一带一路是习近平外交政策的招牌，这条走廊将把中国内陆同欧洲市场及中东能源供给连接起来。”“
„…Andrew Small, author of „The China-Pakistan Axis“, a new book on the two countries‘ relations, said that for Beijing, the corridor project offers a means of driving growth in China’s interior and helping stabilise Xinjiang at a time when fears of militancy are growing. Opening up the Arabian Sea also diversifies China’s maritime trade routes, reducing what Beijing sees as to be vulnerabilities in specific choke-points such as the Malacca Straits, Small told AFP.“
„…It all sounds too good to be true from Pakistan’s point of view, and it probably is. As a recent book by Andrew Small (“The China-Pakistan Axis”) makes clear, economic interactions between China and Pakistan have a history of ending in disappointment. Gwadar was opened with great fanfare in 2007 but remains something of a white elephant. And even the strongest symbol of Sino-Pakistani economic co-operation, the Karakoram Highway—the “eighth wonder of the world”, climbing to over 15,000 feet (4,500 metres)—has been impassable since 2010, when a landslide blocked part of it, and is not expected to be cleared until this September.“
„…Despite Chinese-U.S. competition for influence across Asia, they share interests in Pakistan. Both want a stable government fighting militancy, said Andrew Small, author of a book on China-Pakistan relations. „China would like U.S. support for Pakistan to continue, in terms of aid, selling arms, and other support,“ Small told Reuters.“
„…Today, Pakistan is a central part of China’s transition from a regional power to a global one, according to author Andrew Small in his book, „The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics“. He says the country lies at the heart of Beijing’s plans for a network of ports, pipelines, roads and railways connecting the oil and gas fields of the Middle East to the mega-cities of East Asia.“
„…As “The China-Pakistan Axis”, a recent book by Andrew Small, makes clear, Pakistan owes its nuclear capability in part to Chinese help. When they talk about this friendship, Pakistani leaders seem about to burst into a torch song: “deeper than the deepest ocean”, “sweeter than honey”, etc. But the romance has hit a rocky patch: witness the difficulty in scheduling a first visit to Pakistan by Xi Jinping, China’s president.“
„…Pakistan’s role in two important theatres of geopolitics, the Saudi Arabia-centric West Asia and Afghanistan, has also been strengthened due to the China factor. Andrew Small shows in “The China-Pakistan Axis:Asia’s New Geopolitics” that at a time when Saudi Arabia had no diplomatic relations with China, it was Pakistan which facilitated secret negotiations between Riyadh and Beijing culminating in te sale of Chinese long-range missiles to the former. He writes that Pakistan thus lies at the nexus of Saudi Arabia’s potential nuclear capability; warheads produced by Pakistan can possibly be mated with Chinese-built Saudi missiles in a future scenario.“
„…Andrew Small, author of “The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics,” said China was reacting to the perceived failure of Western aid to make a significant difference to Pakistan. “The Chinese response is that you haven’t done it on a large enough scale,” Mr. Small said. “They’re saying that it is only by doing it on this kind of big-bang scale that you’re going to have the transformative economic effect that Pakistan needs.”“
„…Increasingly, China has been showing „less sensitivity on economic projects in Kashmir,“ says Andrew Small, author of the new book The China-Pakistan Axis. The 2005 India-US nuclear deal was one major turning point, according to Small. „From that moment on, China has to think about India not just in terms of the bilateral relationship, but in the context of its biggest strategic concern, the United States and its friends and allies in Asia. That certainly refreshes the old logic for the China-Pakistan relationship-keeping India tied down and off-balance in its own neighbourhood.““
„…As Pakistan’s Planning Minister, Ahsan Iqbal, said before Xi’s visit, „If we become the bridge between these three engines of growth, we will be able to carve out a large economic bloc of about 3 billion living in this part of the world … nearly half the planet.“ Expansive as that vision is, China’s ambitions for Pakistan go beyond it — in part because they are about much more than Pakistan itself. As the German Marshall Fund’s Andrew Small writes in his excellent new book, The China-Pakistan Axis: „Pakistan is a central part of China’s transition from a regional power to a global one. The country lies at the heart of Beijing’s plans for a network of ports, pipelines, roads, and railways connecting the oil and gas fields of the Middle East to the mega-cities of East Asia. Its coastline is becoming a crucial staging post for China’s takeoff as a naval power, extending its reach from the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. „Penetration by Pakistan’s intelligence services into the darkest corners of global jihadi networks are a vital asset to China as it navigates its growing interests in the Islamic world, and seeks to choke off support for the militant activities that pose one of the gravest threats to China’s internal stability.““
China’s President is pledging to invest $46 billion in a corridor across Pakistan linking China with the Middle East. Some analysts say this signifies a decline in America’s influence in the region.
„…Small, author of a new book about Beijing’s close alliance with Islamabad, says Beijing’s economic investments and political role in the two troubled nations is likely to increase. “We are going to see China playing a much more expansive political and diplomatic role than it ever has in this region before,“ he said. „In the medium term we are going to see a level of Chinese economic involvement in the region that is in the many multiples of what it was before.“
„…Small said China’s foreign policy could transform its foreign policy in the next decade – or even the next five years – because the country was rethinking its political relationship. Commenting on terrorism, he said it had evolved from being a peripheral concern to a central issue. On Pakistan-China ties, he said he felt that the relationship lacked depth because there was no people-to-people contact. “There also exists a huge language barrier,” he said. “Despite this, the relationship seems to be resilient.”“